Exploration is one of the pillars of supply and is perhaps the most storied of them due to the risks, with images of remote harsh areas, fortunes won and lost and geoscientists scouring across the globe in search of the next big play. Yet due to these same risks, when commodity prices drop, it is the first to suffer budget cuts.
A historical review of discoveries shows the peak of oil discoveries was in the mid 60's and gas the mid 70's. Since then exploration has yielded an average of almost 13 Bbo per year, with a recent uptip in 2008 to 15 Bbo thanks mostly to deepwater. Giants, those fields greater than 1 Billion barrels equivalent and the holy grail of the exploration hunt, have until recently averaged only around 12 per decade or a little more than one per year. The last two years has seen at least 4 per year. Much of this can be attributed to the opening of several new huge hydrocarbon provinces- Brazil's subsalt, West Africa's Ivorian Basin Maghony trend, the US GOM Lower Tertiary and Kurdistan Iraq's Zagros Foldbelt. Surprisingly around 40 % of the giants are still coming from onshore.
A recent IHS CERA report shows that exploration will have to contribute some 20 mmb/d of production in 2030 to meet growing demand. This panel will look at the future of exploration and what obstacles we face towards meeting the future targets for exploration.
Amongst the topics to be discussed will be:
Where are the next new petroleum provinces or plays that will change the game ?
Has the unconventional revolution changed conventional exploration thinking ?
Are we investing enough to meet the goal ?
Access to opportunities has changed so how do you play the new game ?
Have we reached a technology plateau ?
What area would benefit the most from a technology break through?
What tools do we need ?
Are we making progress in solving the great crew change ?
Will government policy and legislation make it impossible ?
